Jadelyn Down the Rabbit Hole
by ForWhomTheBelleTolls
Summary: Jade falls down a manhole and finds herself in a strange new world of gangs and magic. Based on Alice in Wonderland.


**A/N: This was written for a fairytale prompt down at the Topaz Awards forum. This is my spin on _Alice in Wonderland_. I know it doesn't follow the plot verbatim, but the plot was too long and some characters just didn't fit, so your favorite character might just not be here, and there's some gender reversal with some of them (some because I needed it, some because I'm randomly throwing in names of my friends from the Topaz forum, and there weren't enough girls). Anyway, it's really weird and long; I'm sorry, but just bear with me on this one!**

It was nearly midnight when we left the bar. We were all either tipsy or drunk. Sinjin made some amazing fake IDs. Some of his best work, but you won't ever hear me admitting to that. In fact, if you tell anyone I said that, I will end you.

"Come on, Jade!" Andre cried, yanking my hand, "We're gonna be late!" We were all in costume, having come from a late-night acting exercise before we went out drinking. Andre shoved his pocket watch in my face before settling it back in the midnight blue vest that matched my tight, floor-length, satin dress.

"Late for what?" I asked, still dazed. We were going down an alley. It was dark, and I could barely make out his figure as we rounded the corner into another alley. Steam blew off the pavement as the warmth of the recently paved tar met the cold night. The tar was etched in patterns, letters. It spelled _ONE Land_, after ONE, which was the name of a gang that had recently been trying to make themselves more prominent.

"We're gonna be late for….a very important date!" Andre called, drunk and disappearing suddenly through the mist.

"What?" I asked again. I walked over to where he had disappeared. In his stead was a manhole. I peered down into it, but I was pushed from behind.

"Don't be late!" an undecipherable voice cried. My body felt suspended in midair, although I knew I was falling. I could feel the wind rushing against my ears, and my hair whipped around me. My dress clung even tighter against my body, and I reached out blindly in the darkness for anything that would break my fall.

"Imagine when she tries to get through the door," a high-pitched voice speculated, before flying off into the distance. I tried to scream for help but the air was shoved from my lungs. It felt like I was suffocating.

My dress ripped on something, and the skirt ballooned out, breaking my fall as I came to an almost crashing halt on a dirty, tiled floor. I had no idea where I was, but this was certainly not a sewer.

I didn't even notice the table before my leg knocked into it, nearly collapsing it. It was a folding table, with a grungy, gray-that-probably-used-to-be-white plastic top, and black metal legs. Steadying it, I noticed a brown beer bottle filled with liquid that did not smell like beer. The label (probably Coors Light judging by the contours of the bottle) had been ripped off, replaced with masking tape that said _Drink Me._

I was already kind of tipsy, so I figured what the heck. I picked up the bottle and took a long swig. I coughed. That stuff was nasty, and I'd tried lime-flavored vodka.

Suddenly, my entire body was tingling painfully, as if all my muscles had fallen asleep, and my dress became so huge that it literally swallowed me whole. It took a whole five minutes to get out from under there.

Turns out I shrunk.

Welp, that was just great. I don't know what the point of that was. The buzz from the beer I'd drank was fading, and I looked around, trying to make sense of where I was. I took some of the material from my dress and wrapped it around me, in case anyone was watching. I stumbled with it, coming to stand in front of a door. It was too big for me, but I could get through it if I just had a key…

I looked back at the table to see that there was a brass-colored key sitting on the very end. I jumped about ten times, each time swearing that I was getting up higher than the last, before I gave up.

I flopped down on the dirty tile, exhausted, and noticed a cookie, lying on the ground. It looked moldy and disgusting. Upon closer inspection, I found it to be a blondie. (Basically, it was a chocolate chip cookie in brownie form – if you don't know that just don't talk to me anymore.) It was covered in dust and grime. It said _Eat Me_ on the top, in gray-blue icing.

"I wonder if she'll eat it," the high-pitched voice from before called again.

"I doubt it, Nikki, none of the other girls did," another voice answered.

"Shut up, Derek, I'm speculating!" the high-pitched voice responded. The voices went silent.

The other girls. Tori and Cat. They must have been here. I couldn't tell from the voices if eating the blondie was good or bad, but if it was good, I don't know what would've happened to them. Suddenly I was scared. This was more than just a prank from my friends.

This was ONE. I was in Oneland, playing their stupid mindgames. But this was a gang, and these games meant life or death. I had to get out of here, which meant that I could take a chance and assert my risk-taking tendencies, or I could sit here and wait until someone came to get me, or starve to death.

I took a big bite.

I let my dress slip back over my head as the tingling sensation returned, but this time I grew until my head hit the ceiling and my dress ripped even more. What is this?

I took another sip of the beer that made me shrink. It didn't kill me once, it couldn't the second time. But the bottle broke in my now-large hands, and it was all over my body, and I continued shrinking until my dress pooled around my ankles, the straps barely staying on my shoulders, at least two or three sizes too big. I knew that I had exhausted my options. And my body. The tingling sensations had made me feel like I was burning up inside.

At least I took the key with me.

Right now all I wanted to do was sleep.

I grabbed the key and stuck it in the keyhole. The door was still almost too small. I squeezed my way through it with the intention of sleeping once I got outside of it.

I stopped dead in my tracks.

I was in a tunnel, with brick walls and a damp asphalt path. The walks were covered in a thick, chalky paint that formed trees, the kinds a small child would draw. I was in a forest of damp and disgusting. It takes a lot to scare Jade West, but in that moment I was absolutely terrified.

I heard a loud noise behind me, and I turned around, clinging to the dirty walls.

"Don't be afraid," I heard Beck's voice call, as I observed a large bird, who had crashed into some cans.

"Beck?" I called, "Where are you?" I instantly realized how stupid I'd been, revealing my presence to any ONE member who wanted to kill me.

"Don't be afraid," I heard his voice say again, calmer, as the bird looked up and approached me. It was huge and black, with an orange beak, like a toucan. It wasn't a toucan, though, because it was rather fat, and it had a more bulbous head. I looked closer, and met all-too-familiar eyes.

"Beck?" I repeated, hesitantly.

"Yeah," the bird answered.

"But – how –?" I sputtered.

"They're magic," he told me, "this isn't an ordinary gang. They took all of us, and transformed us. And time passes differently here. I've been here for days, but it looks like you've only been here for minutes."

"What?" I asked.

"Find them – Andre, Cat, and Tori. Find them and bring them back to us. We can get out of this if we're together."

"That doesn't make _any_ sense," I hissed.

"It doesn't have to yet. You'll understand. You're the catalyst in all of this, Jade. You can save us. But you have to find them," He leaned in, meeting my eyes. I backed away so that his beak wouldn't whack my face. "Sorry," he apologized, "still getting used to the beak."

"Wait," I realized, "what about Robbie?"

"Robbie's a nutcase," a voice claimed, stepping out of the shadows, along with another entity. Both were round and fat and it took me a second to realize who I was talking to.

"Rex?" I asked, taking another look. It was Rex, brought to life. He'd put on about a hundred pounds on top of that, as did the dork next to him. "Robbie?" What had they done to him?

"The red queen thinks I'm funny," Fat Robbie told Real Rex.

"No, she doesn't," Real Rex told him, and slapped him.

"You're so mean to me!" Robbie shrieked, and began to get into a slap fight with Rex.

"For once, would you two boneheads quit mucking about! This girl is our only hope – how dare you distract her!" A British voice cried out. I turned to see a small dormouse.

"Who are you?" I asked, "You're certainly not Tori."

"I should certainly hope not!" The mouse answered, looking up at me.

"So you are….?" I posed again, ignoring the chance to wonder at who the heck Tori had become.

"Cassy. Been here for five years now. Mistress of the Grinning Cat, assigned to guide you, along with Beck and Robbie and Rex," the strange mouse told me, "And you, I am told, are going to lead us out of here."

"I have absolutely no idea," I told her, "So how did you end up in this hell-hole?"

"I was sent to spy and got myself captured," she told me. This mouse was a gang spy?

"Alright, Cassy," I muttered, "where to?"

"The White Rabbit, of course!" She cried, skittering in front of me.

"Who?" I asked.

"He's very old and wise, been here longer than any of us," she squeaked excitedly. Bird Beck and Fat Robbie exchanged some glances that I couldn't quite decipher.

We continued down the dark tunnel for a long time. My feet were aching in my heels, but I didn't try to take them off. Who knew what sort of disgusting….things lined the damp ground? I noticed that the painted trees got closer together and darker in color as we walked further into the forest that was this tunnel. I noticed doors here or there, painted to look like houses.

Finally, we came to one door in particular. The door itself was painted with a light yellow chalky paint, and the bricks around it were covered in blue chalky paint, forming a pentagon, with windows and a brown roof. It looked like something out of a cartoon, but it was still more artfully rendered than anything else in this tunnel. The trees here looked like lollipops.

Beck pecked the door three times, paused, and then pecked it twice more. Great. This place had its very own secret, rebellious society _within_ the society of people imprisoned by the illegal society of people. And all of the people I've seen so far weren't even real people anymore. This was too weird.

The door opened, and out stepped a stately white rabbit in a midnight blue waistcoat (with a pocket watch) and a lizard dressed like that chimney sweep from _Mary Poppins_. They were large for their species, coming up to at least my mid-thigh. Although perhaps I'm just really short from drinking that awful stuff back in that dirty room.

"You must be Jade…" the lizard guy muttered in wonder, also in a British accent. The dormouse, Cassy, nudged him.

"No hug for me?" She squeaked. The lizard picked her up and tentatively hugged her small frame, before setting it back down.

"It's been three years, Cas. You haven't changed a bit," he told her.

"See you finally got a job," Cassy noted, before turning to me and adding, "This is Jack. He's my big brother. Although, not so big, because of the stupid time flux in here. I'm older and younger or we're twins. It all depends on whose timeline you're looking at."

"I will always be bigger! You're like a mouse compared to me!" He exclaimed, "Oh wait…." She took a tiny needle sheathed at her waist that I didn't notice before, and stabbed him in the foot.

"Your hands!" She scolded as he latched them to his now sore foot. They were covered in soot. They began to….squabble, I guess. I tuned them out, and turned my attention on the rabbit in the familiar waistcoat.

"Fifty-three years," he began, "and you haven't aged a day."

"Fifty-three?" I asked, instantly recognizing his voice, "Andre, it's only been hours for me!" I bent down and gave him a big hug. Fifty-three years. He was almost seventy now.

I had to save them. I had to get them all out of here.

Then I remembered something.

"Andre," I started, "Before we fell down the manhole, you were saying something." Andre turned his head, concentrating hard on what I was saying. It was fifty-three years ago for him, who knew if he remembered what we were going to be late for.

"I'm sorry, Jade," he replied, "I don't remember. I was drunk, and it was so long ago."

"It's alright," I told him, "I kind of figured."

"Well, you lot, we should get going before the Red Queen's spies find us," Cassy interjected.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"To see the Hatter, of course!" Robbie clarified.

"It's not of course! She's been here for less than a day – she doesn't know!" Rex criticized.

"But she ought to know!" Robbie explained.

"But she doesn't!" Rex shot back, "And who says 'ought to' anymore?"

"Would you all just shut up and walk?" Beck squawked, leading the way. Andre grabbed a cane and hopped over to us. I'd almost forgotten for a minute that's he's sixty eight.

We wandered down the dark, damp tunnel for a while. It felt like it was getting darker and damper. At one point, along the wall were two girls in chains. Around them, the chalky paint made flowers, as if these girls chained to the wall weren't actually there, as if they were just flowers in the forest.

"Hey, Smiley, look, it's a new girl!" The older one screamed at me.

"Wonder what she's doing here?" The younger one, Smiley, scoffed.

"Look at her clothes, Smiles," The older one began, "I bet she's a ONE."

"You think, Cae?" Smiley asked.

"Tell me," Cae theorized, "have you ever seen girl this young down here? They're obviously using her to get to us."

"I bet she _asked_ for this job, to be put in this hell-hole," Smiley accused.

"I bet she's pretending to be trapped here so she can get information outta us," Cae shouted in my direction, "I bet she's a nark."

"Nark!" Smiley screamed at me, "Go home, Nark!"

"Die, Nark, die!" Cae called. Beck put a wing on my shoulder and ushered me around the corner.

"Other way!" A voice called as a giant, smiling face appeared from the shadows. She looked like a cat, but she was purple, and she had normal person hair. She was my height, but she was floating, weirdly enough. I took a few steps back, because, to be quite honest, she scared me.

"It's okay, sweetie," Cassy motioned for me to come closer, and Andre grabbed my hands in his paws.

"Yeah, Jade," Andre explained, "This is Alaina. She was the head of the Blackpipes for a while, before she ended up here. Now she's a cat, but she has a special kind of torture because she can never settle in one place. She's always floating."

"Well that's," I mused, "Interesting."

"I'm surprised how little you've seen of down here," Alaina noted, "how long have you been here?"

"Um, not even a day," I replied, honestly. Alaina turned to Andre angrily.

"She's the Savior and she hasn't even been here a day?" She yelled, "How do you expect her to save us? What does she know of the Red Queen, of Oneland? You're a fool if you think she can help us!"

"She knows the Queen far better than any of us," Andre told her calmly, "She will help us. Now, what is our next move?"

"We go and see the Hat," Alaina instructed, forcing a wide grin on her face. She disappeared in that instant. I should have been surprised, but, at this point, I really wasn't.

We wandered down the endless tunnel for a little bit longer and Beck explained what exactly was going on.

"You see," he began," Sikowitz has a niece. You just met her, the one who was the head of the Blackpipes."

"Alaina?" I asked. She did not look related to Sikowitz in the least.

"Yeah," Beck answered, "and apparently they're really close, and ONE figured it out. Derek, the leader, needed bait, so he had us each followed that night, Sikowitz included, and we were all taken here. We all went through that room, and we all turned into animals or strange things when we came through that door. It took Andre years to find us all; he was about thirty by the time I was brought in. Sikowitz introduced us to Alaina, and she's been heading this whole plan to get out of here."

"If Alaina is so amazing, why am I the Savior?" I asked, a twinge of jealousy pulling at me from Beck's obvious friendship with this girl.

"There's only so much I can tell you," Beck responded, pulling back.

"But if we wants to know…" Robbie started.

"But we must'nt!" Rex chided.

"But if she wants to then don't we ought to?" Robbie shot back.

"You boys ought to shut up!" Cassy squeaked, scurrying up to us, "We're here."

"You have to do this by yourself," Andre said turning to me.

"Why?" I was confused now.

"Sikowitz and…" Andre trailed off for a second, "Well, you'll see. They aren't themselves, and they haven't…They aren't particularly set on this whole getting-out thing anymore."

I turned the corner, into a room were many tunnels met together in what looked like, well, a room. It was big and cavernous (which are synonyms and redundant, but I don't care) and grass was growing through the large chunks in the floor that were missing. A dirty, long, folding table was set up in the center, covered in paper plates and red solo cups. A rank, alcoholic scent filled the air, hidden by the mildew smell of the tunnels nearly a second ago. Sitting in folding chairs at the table were Sikowitz, wearing (and I kid you not) a purple velvet over his usual ensemble, complete with a matching top hat, and Tori. She looked between twenty and thirty, but she was covered in fur, much like Andre's except it matched her hair, from which rose two, giant, bunny ears.

I shouldn't have been surprised. Not even Alaina disappearing on me fazed me. But when I stepped around the corner and saw them giggling, with glassy eyes, I was nearly fearful.

"Jade, oh myosh!" Tori slurred, bounding up to me, "You're late for tea!" Sikowitz threw a solo cup in my direction, splattering stale beer all over me. I winced, and walked over to them.

"Hi guys," I greeted them, "How long has it been?"

"Thirteen years and twelve days. Or was it twelve years and thirteen days?" Sikowitz spat over a giggle spasm, "Come on, West, we needs to cel-brate!"

"Celebrate what?" I asked cautiously.

"Your unbirthday, of course!" Tori giggled.

"My what?"

"Ever birthday you have since you got here," Sikowitz explained, grammatically incorrectly, "you've missed, so we celebrate to make up for them!"

"It's not my birthday and I just got here," I supplied.

"That's why it's your unbirthday!" Tori cried, wrapping her arms around me. I shoved her off, but she refused to let go. I'd never seen anyone this drunk before.

"Shove off!" I cried.

"Hey Jade, are you alright?" Andre appeared from nowhere, blocking Tori from me. For an old guy, he was agile.

"Rabbit!" Sikowitz's eyes narrowed, and he threw his chair at Andre. It went about two feet, landing at least seven feet away from where Andre was standing.

"I'm hunting wabbits!" Tori cried with sudden ferocity, her hands lunging for Andre's neck.

"We gotta get out of here," Andre cautioned, pulling me out into the tunnel once more.

"What _was_ that?" I asked, "Why did Alaina want us to go there?"

"To show you what'll happen if you screw up," Alaina explained, appearing above Jack's head. She looked down at Jack, and mocked in a British accent, "I suppose we out to go see the Queen now? She if she's amused that Jadelyn's here?"

"It's Jade, not Jadelyn," I corrected, irritated with this girl already.

"Whatever," she muttered, "let's go."

We followed her even further into the long, dark, damp, smelly tunnel, covered with paint on the walls in the pattern of a forest and haven't we heard this before? I was getting really tired of this tunnel.

And then we left the tunnel. I did not see that one coming. Suddenly, we were in a maze. But it wasn't a normal maze; it was a giant, dark-green hedge, very _Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire_. It was even moving. The maze would cut off here or there and before I knew it, I was alone.

"Miss me?" A voice called from behind. I turned to see Alaina's irritating smirk as she instructed, "follow me."

She was the leader, so I followed her. It wasn't long before we were in a garden. When we got above ground, I don't know, but that's where we were.

There was sky. I'd never been so happy to see the sun in my entire life. It was bright and blue and the air just smelled fresh. It was _amazing_. This garden was a patio, actually. A backyard that looked like something out of one of those dumb Jane Austen books we had to read for English, complete with the fantastic-looking mansion behind it.

"Are we out?" I turned to Alaina, hopeful, but she'd disappeared. Again.

"JadeJadeJadeJadeJadeJadeJade!" A voice squealed. I turned to see a familiar mane of fake red hair running toward me.

"Cat!" I cried, hugging her. I was so glad that she looked normal, no fur or extra body fat or wings or anything. I pulled back from the hug, "You look older."

"I'm twenty-six," Cat told me.

"Wow," I murmured. She looked fantastic, beautiful even. She was old and mature and phenomenal. "What is this place?" I asked.

"This is my castle!" Cat grinned, "If you play your cards right here, you'll get special privileges with ONE. I'm Derek's second in command."

"Derek?" I confirmed, "Derek _the bad guy who trapped us here_ Derek?"

"He's not bad! Alaina's the bad one," Cat clarified, "We just got caught up in the mess, that's all. But I learned how to work the system."

"By joining a gang? What'd you do, sleep with him?" This was not my Cat. I didn't know what happened to her, but this was _not_ my Cat.

"Don't be ridiculous!" Cat slapped my arm.

"I'm not, Cat. I want to know what the _heck_ is going on!" I screamed.

"Well, Derek has a girlfriend, Nikki, if you must know," Cat informed me, "I got to the top because I am an incredibly good strategist. Alaina recruited me when I first got here. Taught me how to do everything, you know?"

"And then you just left her?"

"Derek showed me that his side was right," Cat argued, "Alaina's Blackpipes burned down one of ONE's lots, and Derek needed to retaliate, and that's why we're here. He started it. Come on, Jade, let's not talk about this now. We have ten years of catching up to do. Why don't we start with croquet? There's a wonderful game going on in the front lawn. You can take Livvy's place. She was getting too much to handle anyway."

Cat dragged me around the mansion to the front lawn, where the strangest game of croquet I'd ever seen was set up. They were playing with plastic flamingoes as mallets and furry balls.

"Here," Cat said, handing me a mallet, "This is Livvy."

"Don't you dare," the mallet squawked as I reached for the neck. I jumped back.

"Cat!" I shrieked.

"Whaty?" Cat asked.

"The mallet is alive!"

"Well, yeah, that's how we play here. Livvy was being a sore loser, so she became a mallet. It's been happening for as long as I can remember, Jade," Cat instructed, as if I was a small child, "Now, go line up your hedgehog."

"My what?" I asked again, incredulous.

"Hedgehog. We use them as the balls."

"Cat, this is animal abuse," I told her patiently.

"No it's not," Cat explained, "they hardly feel it." The moment she said that, a man swung his flamingo until it hit his hedgehog with a bone-crunching thud.

"Cat, this is wrong."

"If you don't like it, you can leave," Cat warned, her voice dropping in tone and her eyes narrowing. I felt strong arms grab me as Cat ordered, at the top of her lungs, "OFF WITH HER HEAD!"

I struggled in their grasp until my foot collided with a part of one of the men holding me that, let's just say, should not be kicked. He let go of me suddenly, causing me to jerk out of the grasp of the other man. I sprinted across the lawn, pursued by many, until I felt an arm grab me and drag me into another tunnel.

I never thought I'd be glad to see those again. Or smell them.

"I'm Nikki," the body belonging to the arm introduced herself. I recognized her high-pitched voice instantly.

"You're the lady from the room with the table," I acknowledged, "You're dating Derek."

"Yes, and I'm really sorry to do this," she said, "but I'm helping you, I promise."

I was about to question it when I was slapped across the face. Hard.

I opened my eyes to find myself lying on asphalt, underneath the cool night sky, staring up at Tori.

"Wha?" I mumbled.

"You passed out, Jade," she explained, "come on, let me drive you home."

I glanced down at the uncovered manhole on the street as she led me out of the alley and to her car, trying to remember what exactly it was that I was so concerned with only minutes before.


End file.
